Author's Notes: I am so sorry for the long wait, everyone! I've had a bit of writer's block lately. Here, let me thank asyouwish16 for pointing out that the werewolves can only feel each other's emotions when in wolf form. I honestly had no clue. (Ja, ich kann zuweilen wirklich stumm sein. I know.) Let's just say that Leah and Seth didn't get enough sleep the previous night or whatever and were tired and grouchy, haha.

Chapter Eleven - Wonder Why

It was raining again. Fat, clear drops of water punched the roof and fogged up the windows. If you listened closely, you could her thunder rumbling vaguely in the distance. Another typical La Push day.

On the couch in front of me, Seth was complaining like crazy.

"How can they give us all of this homework?" he ranted admist a pile of books and papers. "This stuff takes about seven hours to do. We don't have time for this. We have lives."

"Well," I said cheerfully, having already finished mine, "at least it's a rainy day. It's not like you have anything else to do."

"Every day is a rainy day," he grumbled. Wasn't that the truth.

The three of us (counting CJ) were in the living room of my house on a boring Monday evening. Heather was still at the library; she'd had to stay later today because they had something or another going on. And Seth was obviously complaining about how much homework that he, as a senior, was getting. I'd always thought that he was at least nineteen, and it surprised me when he told me he was actually seventeen. We went to the same school, but unfortunately, I was a sophomore and he was in the twelfth grade and we had no classes together.

I was busy holding CJ while he slept (thunderstorms always lulled him to sleep) and reading the book everyone had gotten me for my birthday. It had been wrapped up in silver paper and on a sticky note stuck to it there was "To Willow, From La Push." I knew that it meant La Push as in the community, but I thought it was funny the way it was worded, as though the book had risen from the ground in some sort of crazy La Push offering.

From the outside, it didn't look like much; the cover was a faded brown, and someone had scrawled "La Push" across it in permanent marker. On the inside, though, was a huge collection of La Push legends and old stories. They'd been written down over the generations by residents and visitors, ranging from smitten newlyweds to curious children, grumpy sea captains and wise senior citizens. I thought that this kind of thing belonged in a history museum, but everyone insisted that it wasn't a big deal, that they had more copies, and that they'd heard the stories a million times, anyway.

I liked the legends; they were far more interesting than any lame ghost story I'd ever heard. The words spun tales of wolves and beautiful but deadly creatures called "the cold ones" that sounded a lot like vampires (and, as I later found out, were.) It gave me chills to read about them.

Seth suddenly turned his head towards the door, and so did I. Even through the rain, both of us could hear someone knocking on it. What kind of crazy person would be out and about in this weather? But then I knew it was Heather coming home from work, so I put the book to the side and stood up to go answer. CJ rolled over slightly in my arms.

When I opened the door, it wasn't Heather standing on the porch. Instead, a girl about my age appeared from the shadows as I did. Her blemish-free skin was tanned a dusty gold. Her straight black hair was carelessly slung over her right shoulder, shielded by a dark pink raincoat that probably cost more than Jared and Paul's cars combined. She had the most beautiful glassy emerald eyes I'd ever seen, framed by symmetrical mascara. This girl had a heart-shaped face and a perfect ski-slope nose above full lips covered in tinted gloss. She looked more like a model than someone who would hang around La Push. LA or New York could easily be her home; she definitely didn't belong here.

"May I use your phone?" the girl asked in a bell-like voice, holding up a cellphone that seemed to have been stepped on. "Mine broke."

"Oh, um, sure." I stepped aside so she could come in and pointed to the phone, which was sitting on a nearby end table. She gave me a grateful smile and went over to it, quickly dialing the numbers with a manicured finger. Seth gave her a curious look as she did so.

Heather promptly burst through the door just as the girl finished her phone call. "God, it's raining up a freakin' lake out there," Heather complained, shaking her wet hair a bit and getting water all over the walls. She gave the girl a curious look. "Who's this?"

"She had to use the phone," I said.

At the exact same second the words left my lips, the girl said, "Rochelle Sherwood. I just moved down by the hill, right next to that store...what's it called again...?"

"Dan's?" I guessed.

"Yeah."

"Really? That's where he and I work," I said, nodding my head towards Seth to indicate whom I was talking about.

"That's nice," replied Rochelle, sounding like she didn't really care. "Well, thanks for letting me use your phone, anyway." She opened the door and stepped out into the rain, closing it behind her a second later. I blinked and wondered why she needed the phone if she was going back out into that madness all over again.

CJ opened his eyes slightly and let out a small wail of confusion at the sudden light. "Now, what was that for?" I asked him, smiling. He closed his eyes again and wrapped his hand around his shirt. "Nothin'. I think it's time for you to go to bed."

After I put him in his crib, I went back downstairs and was about to ask Heather how things at the library had gone when the phone rang. She stood up and shuffled over to it, looking dead on her feet. I sat next to Seth just as he crammed all of his stuff in his bookbag.

"I give up," he said. "This homework's going to drive me crazy."

I nodded, knowing how that could be. From the kitchen, Heather was saying, "You're talking to her. Who's this?" There was a pause as they responded, and the phone slid from her hands onto the floor. She quickly picked it up and ran upstairs at breakneck speed, barking into the phone as she went, "What?!"

If there was one thing Heather had always been known for, it was how dramatic she could be over the phone. Just to make sure she didn't end up throwing it at the wall, I stood up, told Seth I'd be right back, and went up the stairs after her.

I couldn't imagine who was calling Heather, as the only people who had this phone number were Seth and Ciara, though I seriously doubted that she was bothering to contact us. Plus, whenever she talked to Ciara, she usually sounded a lot snottier than she did as I stood outside of her bedroom door and listened.

"Why are you calling me?" she was asking. "I thought you didn't care--yeah, well, how'd you get this number, anyway?" No, she definitely was not talking to Ciara. "Well, why did she? Oh, right. Because she does everything you tell her to. That's how it's always been. And what is it that you can't take responsibility for now?" Heather paused, and then said, so loudly that I could easily hear her over the rain, "That's your problem, isn't it? You can't expect me to be able to do anything about it."

Who in the world was she talking to?

"Hang this up, will you?" Heather asked, suddenly right in front of me. She stood in the doorway and handed me the phone. I tried to read her expression, but all I got was emptiness.

"Who called?" I replied.

"That's none of your business," Heather snapped, and I raised my eyebrows. Touchy.

"Fine, then," I said, turning around and walking down the hall. "But you forget that I can always check the caller ID."

From a nearby mirror, I could see Heather's eyes widen. She obviously had not thought of that. "Willow, please, it's nobody." It sounded as though she was begging me not to check, and it made no sense. But obviously 'nobody' hadn't made her mad, and curiosity was just crawling at me.

When I arrived downstairs, I put the phone back into its cradle. Then I slunk over to the caller ID and looked at it to see who had called Heather.

And nearly fainted.

I knew this name, this number, even though it had been so long since I'd heard either one.

Why, after all of this time, was he calling?

Author's Notes: Oooh, who's he, I wonder?
You'll have to wait and see!
Reviews appreciated very much! (: